Breaking Kosher: Is Los Pollos Hermanos certified?

The fry batter used at the fictional fried-chicken chain Los Pollos Hermanos — run by drug kingpin Gustavo Fring — apparently is certified kosher by the Orthodox Union.

Except, as Tablet’s Michael Orbach explains in his investigation of the matter, the OU certification that appears on the batter is itself fictional.

AMC… wasn’t able to tell me how the OU symbol ended up on the show. (The batter is apparently pareve, containing neither meat or diary.) Scenes of the restaurant are shot in the non-kosher New Mexico fast food chain Twisters, which offers a meal of sausage, bacon, and cheese, a trifecta of trayf. And while we don’t know the reason for the symbol, most likely someone in the props department copied the label on a similar product.

The ingredient list for Los Pollos Hermanos batter doesn’t include shellfish or pork products that, needless to say, wouldn’t be certified as kosher. However, despite certification on some of its ingredients, the fictional restaurant chain would still not be considered kosher, according to Rabbi Menachem Genack, the CEO of the Orthodox Union’s Kosher division, who also admitted to not having seen or heard about the show.